Just two weeks into DJT’s presidency, and the shit is already hitting the fan. As I read on Twitter the other day, the U.S had one Black President and white supremacy responded by setting the entire world on fire.

But, this post is not about DJT’s Muslim-ban-that-he-says-really-isn’t-a-Muslim-ban. It’s about me trying to wrap my head around the fact that there are so many people who think the ban is a good thing. They believe that all Muslims are terrorists; that we should be suspicious of all immigrants and refugees; and that the U.S is right to send them back to their home countries, regardless of the violence and terror they will face. They hold these views despite any and all evidence to the contrary.

Last year, I read an interview with Barack Obama in The New Yorker. Speaking with David Remnick shortly after Trump had been confirmed as the president-elect, Obama said:

The new media ecosystem “means everything is true and nothing is true,” […] “An explanation of climate change from a Nobel Prize-winning physicist looks exactly the same on your Facebook page as the denial of climate change by somebody on the Koch brothers’ payroll.”

Obama makes a good point, but I don’t think it’s a sufficient enough explanation for why some people will continue to believe what they want to believe, no matter what. I think the issue is that, not only do explanations and denials of climate change look the same on your Facebook page, but they feel the same.

What I mean is, people use social media to curate information that makes them feel good: such as getting updates from friends and family; finding affinity groups for their interests and hobbies; reading news that affirms their worldview; etc. This reinforces a kind of positive emotional bond between the user and their social media feed(s).

So consider this – what if those positive emotional bonds are so powerful, that whenever something shows up in your social media feed that doesn’t make you feel good, you treat it with suspicion? Or maybe even reject it outright?

And what if this response is so unconscious and immediate that you don’t recognize it’s even happening? What if all you do is just say to yourself, “That can’t be right”?

I will admit that I do this. And I know I’m not the only one. That’s what disconfirmation bias is, after all. Everyone is susceptible to it, regardless of our politics or our level of education.1

But, there’s disconfirmation bias, and then there’s deliberately flinging around your own bullshit because you don’t think it stinks. You do this regardless of any actual harm you may cause.

In the case of the U.S.’ immigration ban, this means supporting families being torn apart, 5-year-olds being handcuffed, and asylum-seekers being sent back to their war-torn countries to die.

(I can’t even…)

So does this mean that disconfirmation bias and emotion are connected? Or even that emotion is at the root of bias?

I recently stumbled across a mention of a new book by sociologist Arlie Hochschild, “Strangers in their Own Land”. It’s about what makes people willingly vote in ways that are, ultimately, against their own interests. According Hochschild, people have

“deep stories” — about who they are, and what their values are. Deep stories don’t need to be completely accurate, but they have to feel true. They’re the stories we tell ourselves to capture our hopes, pride, disappointments, fears, and anxieties. [emphasis in original]

In other words, people believe their bullshit doesn’t stink because it feels true to believe this is so.

I don’t know what makes someone get to this point. I am aware of the research showing that people with rigid conservative beliefs tend to have larger amygdalas (the so-called “fear centre” of the brain) than people who don’t.

There have also been some really interesting studies about “science curiosity“, and about what motivates people to seek out new information that challenges what they know.

And I’m sure that if – when – I read Hochschild’s book, I’ll gain even more insight. It might even validate my quietly long-held suspicion that emotion is the level at which we need to engage people if we want them to change their views. Not just with reason, as we’ve been taught.2

Lately, I’ve seen a number of calls for resisters and supporters of DJT to “reach across the aisle” and find common ground with each other. But, how do you find common ground – at an emotional level – with people whose deep stories are so completely different from than your own? And, even worse, may actually advocate your being harmed?

I’ve no idea. I really and truly don’t.3

All I know is that we can’t continue to rely solely on reason and evidence – as powerful and necessary as I think those tools are – to navigate our increasingly polarized world.

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1 This is why I wholeheartedly reject the idea that it is only isolated, uneducated people who resist evidence that is contrary to their beliefs.

2 Thanks to the colonial legacy of Western “rational” thought.

3 At the moment, as a member of at least two marginalized groups who are targets of DJT’s bigotry, I resent the idea that I should have to invest any energy in finding common ground with people who support him. At best, they have no problem looking the other way as the rights of marginalized people are trampled because they think it’ll make them safer, or richer, or something; at worst, they are gleefully doing the trampling because they don’t think marginalized people should have any rights at all… including the right to exist.

As folks have been saying, though, we’re in a marathon, not a sprint. So I suppose, given time, I’ll be able to reach across the aisle when necessary. But right now, I’m not feeling it. (Heh. See what I did there?)

I’ve never believed in making New Year’s resolutions, but I often find myself with vague notions of what I want to do in the coming year. So, in the interest of getting more specific, here’s my “countdown of goals” for 2017:

10 vacation days needed for JustHusband’s birthday extravaganza. (I’m not saying which birthday it is because I suspect he’s just a wee bit sensitive about this one.)

9 TV shows to binge-watch now that we’ve finally got Netflix.

8 more times I’ll dither over whether to get dreadlocks (I’ve been thinking about doing it for the past ten years or so, but always hesitate to take the plunge, because it’s so permanent and I have commitment issues. 😛 )

7 nonfiction books read by June.

6 attempts at drafting the novel that has been rattling around in my head for the past several years.

5 traditional Trinidadian and Guyanese dishes mastered. (I’m not specifying which ones because I don’t want to jinx myself.)

4 months passed before complaining about the weather and wishing for summer.

3 weeks between calling and/or getting together with friends.

2 Instagram posts/week (now that I’ve finally joined!).

1 year in which I will live my life with radical hope, joyful purpose, and quiet determination. Minimum.

That strikes me as true. And it also strikes me as true that white workers were acting out of a deep economic grievance on Tuesday. Argument A doesn’t falsify Argument B, in this case.

His analysis of the economic betrayal of white lower- and working-class Americans makes sense to me, as does his critique of arguments that blame the ignorance of Trump supporters as the reason for their voting him in.

Still, I think what’s missing from this analysis is a discussion of the way Whiteness functions. Specifically, a discussion of the way Whiteness functions as the link between Arguments A and B.

While both arguments can stand either on their own or together, that “together-ness” should be understood not as a side-by-side arrangement of two separate phenomena, but rather as a fully entangled phenomenon. Whiteness is the glue that keeps that entanglement in place.

It is a promise of ongoing material privilege, security, and superiority that the “right” kind of White people1 make to the “wrong” kind of White people2, as long as the latter group agree to constantly affirm the supremacy of Whiteness by internalizing its norms and values, particularly when it comes to the presumed inferiority of Black and Brown people. In this way, they prove to the “right” kind of White people that they are deserving of material privileges like the kind Jamelle Bouie tweeted about here.

However, if that covenant is broken by the “right” kind of White people – say, for example, through free trade agreements that move manufacturing jobs from White Americans3 to Black and Brown people in Global South countries in Asia and Africa – then the betrayal felt by the “wrong” kind of White people is intense, inarticulate, inchoate.

Trump’s election, then, is in part the result of a failure of Whiteness. That is, a failure of the “right” kind of White people to uphold the covenant of Whiteness and protect the material advantages of “wrong” kind of White people against the rise of globalization and the threat of Black and Brown countries’ economic power.

Trump, as a representative of the “right” kind of White people, was therefore all the more believable and desirable when he promised to return greatness to America, because what he really meant was that he was going to repair the broken covenant, and restore the Whiteness of America.

Economically. Politically.

Literally.

1 People of Anglo-Saxon and Protestant heritage, who also have high degrees of gender, class, and political privilege, and who are deeply invested in and committed to a false racial hierarchy, in which they sit at the top.

2 People of other European heritages, and who have less – or no – gender, class, and political privilege. Some of the more subtle ways this group upholds the covenant of Whiteness include: anglicizing their names; demanding that their children speak only English, rather than their native tongue(s); doing their best to minimize or erase their accents; and adopting Anglo-Saxon foods and cultural practices as their own.

Given the link between affirming Whiteness and gaining economic advantage, these actions are understandable. That doesn’t make it less problematic that these actions needed to be made in first place, though.

3 Never mind that White Americans are not the only ones who work in the manufacturing sector…

THIS magazine used to have a feature called “WTF Wednesday”, in which they profiled issues of a particularly f*cked up, “I can’t believe they did that!” variety.

Today is a good day to bring back that feature.

Not just because I can’t believe the majority of Americans elected Donald Trump for President (quite honestly, there’s a small but resigned part of me that’s not the least bit surprised), but because it feels as though his election marks the beginning of a period when WTF becomes the norm, rather than the exception.

When our capacity for recognizing – and mobilizing against – all the WTF-ness we are about to experience will be reduced to the point where even the most egregious WTF moments will go unremarked upon.

Many people may say that that could never happen, that there will always be those who will stand up against oppression, no matter how bad it gets.

Then again, many people also said that a Trump presidency could never happen, that the American people couldn’t be that fooled by the theatre of his campaign, no matter how offensive his supporters were.

Well.

This is where we are, and this is where I worry we will stay, at least for the next four years. I don’t think we have an adequate frame of reference for dealing with the reality of this situation. (I mean, George W. Bush was bad, but Trump is a whole other classification of badness. I think he may even defy classification.)

I realize that I may be feeling this way simply because I’m still reeling from the aftershocks of the election result. In a few days, or weeks, or months, I may have more perspective. My faith in humanity may be restored by all of the people – Americans, in particular – who will not be taking this result lying down.

This Wednesday, though, it is very, very hard to imagine such a possibility.

So, the thing about doing yard work is that it is never-ending. There is ALWAYS something else that needs to be done: move that plant there, dig a hole here, reposition those rocks over there, dispose of the raccoon/cat/squirrel/god-only-knows-where-that-came-from poop in the middle of the flower bed, etc.

At some point, though, you just have to put down your tools and say, “Enough. This is good enough.” JustHusband and I reached that point a couple of weeks ago.

After creating two more “up-cycled” patios with all the bricks we inherited when we bought our house…

…we decided against levelling out the ground, spreading topsoil, and laying sod ourselves. (We really didn’t want to cut around all those garden beds, anyway.) So, even though we hadn’t budgeted for it1, we paid a landscaping company to do the work. Let me tell you, it was money well spent.

Having glorious green grass after two years of looking out over a cluttered, uneven, dirt- and rock-filled wasteland was so exciting, I had to practically restrain myself from going out and making “grass angels” in the yard. I even told JustHusband that I was looking forward to mowing the lawn (but only sometimes 😉 ) .

Now, if there was only something we could do to keep the raccoons from pulling up the sod2 at night, looking for grubs to eat. * sigh *

1 I figure that since we “saved” money by doing so much of the work ourselves (with the help of friends and family, of course!), the expense was justified.

2 We were told that chicken wire is a great deterrent. The dimensions of our yard means, however, that we’d have to spend upwards of $600 to get proper coverage. For a product that we’d only use once, this was an expense that was most definitely not justified.

For the moment, we’ve been spraying the grass with a mixture of lavender essential oil and water. It seems to be doing the trick. (Mostly. I guess those grubs are just too tasty.)

Last night, Tricia emailed me to say that David, a wonderful man we knew from an online forum to which we all once belonged, has died due to complications from neurosurgery. They are planning to take him off life support tomorrow.

I hadn’t been in touch with David in years, not since our online forum dissipated, as they often do. Still, he was one of my favourite people from that group. I had the privilege to meet him in person about 10 years ago. I can still remember his smile when he came up to me and asked my name (my username, to be precise!). He was one of those people who smiled with his whole face: everything just crinkled up and he looked so happy, you simply couldn’t help but smile back.

And now he’s gone.

Online relationships do funny things to the big moments in life. We share news of marriages, births, adventures, and promotions with people we may never meet face-to-face, but with whom we feel just as close – if not closer – as we do to the people we have offline relationships with. In a way, those moments are amplified, despite the geographic distance among us.

However, when it comes to death, for me, the amplification effect feels… different.

I didn’t receive a phone call from Robin, David’s best friend who was also a part of our online community. In fact, I didn’t even know he was having brain surgery. I did not visit him in the hospital, and I will not be there at his funeral. I know this is true for most of us from our old online group; the news about David is being shared via email, Facebook and other social media, among people who are literally scattered across the globe.

Tricia tells me that it’s comforting to see all of the condolences, prayers and memories being posted on Facebook by people who mostly knew David virtually. I imagine that it is. Sharing our grief amplifies it in a way that makes it easier, not harder, to deal with. Still, it’s not enough. At least, not for me.

I think that death is one of those moments that requires in-person community. As strong as the bonds formed in an online community can be, I think sharing actual, physical space with the people who knew your friend in ways that are different from the way you knew them is “better”. I’m not entirely sure why… perhaps it has something to do with getting to know a fuller version of your friend, because the limits of online communication mean that we only ever see a particular, partial version of them.

I think of Robin, and I can’t even imagine what she is going through right now. If I recall correctly, she and David were friends for over 30 years. I know, though, that over the next few days and weeks, she’ll be surrounded by many of the people who knew David differently than the way she did. (I think it’s also safe to say that a few of those people will be from our old forum.) And I know that this is what will help her through her grief.

As for me, I will just say a prayer of thanks that I had the chance to know David. He was one of the kindest, most loving people I have ever known, and I’m grateful that I got to call him my friend.

Rest in peace, my friend, and in the knowledge that you are deeply, deeply loved.

When your home is over 90 years old, and has had multiple owners who have cared for it – or not – to varying degrees, there’s always a metric crap-load of work to be done, which can make it difficult to know where to start.

“Luckily” for me and JustHusband, that decision was made for us two years ago, a few months after we’d moved in. On a particularly windy night in late October, a long section of our backyard fence collapsed. Since it happened so late in the year, we decided to prop it up with 2 x 4’s and wait until the following summer to rebuild it.

We began with some destruction. Not of the fence, but of the old shed. Then we tore down the entire fence, because it would just have looked really weird to have one section that was all new and shiny, and two remaining sections that were all old and cruddy.

That entire summer was spent building the fence. (Or, as I’ve come to refer to it, The F*cking Fence):

Don’t ask me how late we stayed up setting the fence posts. Seriously: don’t ask.

The finished fence!

All things considered, we built a pretty awesome fence that is still standing today, thanks to help from family and friends who actually knew what they were doing. (Unlike me and JustHusband, who only kinda-sorta-maybe knew what we were doing.)

Naturally, after all of that work, the backyard was a hot hot mess. So we’ve spent almost all of this summer cleaning it up. First, we built a new, smaller (and completely rodent- and critter-free!) shed:

Day 1: Shed with a view

Day 2: Almost there!

No Vacancy For Critters!

Then we began what I call “gardenscaping”. Gardenscaping is what you do when your yard is less of a garden, and more of an archaeological excavation site. To wit: over the past two years, we have unearthed from our backyard the following items…

As you might imagine, this has made putting things where we actually want them somewhat of a challenge. Still, we’re managing pretty well. We made an impromptu dining patio from some of the old pavers and bricks we dug up:

Upcycling for the win!

Who says your patio chairs have to match? I don’t!

And, last weekend, we were finally able to start putting plants in the ground:

From L to R: boxwood, hydrangea. Repeat.

From L to R: lavender, Japanese peony, dogwood tree

We still have a looong way to go, but the end is near. I will say that through all of this, I can totally understand the appeal of playing in the dirt all day. However, I will be very glad when the backyard is done.